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Dropbox Backup skipped some files on external drive, MacOS permissions?

I added an external drive to Dropbox Backup a couple of days ago; it was large and took about 16 hours. Seemed to have worked fine, but this morning I was comparing the backup files with my drive and saw some directories hadn't been copied. I never saw any error or alert, but am suspecting it was a permissions issue. These directories are over 15 years old. But I can not find anywhere what the permissions are supposed to be for Dropbox Backup to properly copy these. I changed one to 750 but it still doesn't seem to get picked up in subsequent backups.

Is this a file permissions issue?

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Comments

Walter

Hey @utpmg - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Do the folders that were skipped contain any special characters of the ones mentioned here?

Are you able to manually upload them to your account as a temporary solution?

Also, what is the Dropbox desktop app's exact status and version as shown in your menu bar?

Let us know what you find and we'll take it from there.

utpmg

no, two skipped folders are named 2003_08_01r and 198603_05; the one successfully backed up is named 198609_01. And all of those folders (and their files within) are shown as "checked" when I look at the "Choose folders" option in "Manage backup."

Dropbox status is version 200.4.7134 Up to date

MacOS Sonoma

Version 14.5 (23F79)

These are currently redundant copies as I only now added this external SSD to the backup so I don't need another copy yet.

I will point out again that the creation dates on those two directories are 2006 and 2008 and their file/folder permissions don't match the others.

Machine has been rebooted a few times since I noticed this.

thanks

Walter

Did you also try removing the external drive and re-plugging it in your computer @utpmg?

utpmg

Yes, I've done that once, maybe twice.

Walter

Thanks for the update @utpmg

Could you try renaming the files and/or re-uploading them to your external drive and let me know if you notice the same behavior?

utpmg

I renamed folder "198603_05" to "aaa" on my SSD, the 'manage backup/choose files' option now lists 'aaa' as selected; but doesn't show up in the backed up list. I waited a while, and also forced another backup; while it was ongoing i noticed the status say something like "updating 2 files" but I see no changes. What are file/folder permissions supposed to be on MacOS for Dropbox Backup to work?

Jay

Hi @utpmg, what is the current status of the backup when viewing it on the Dropbox site?

utpmg

Just says "Done" with a checkmark, 1:45 pm local today

Jay

Thanks for the info, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate this matter in more detail on their end.

utpmg

Ok thanks.

utpmg

Support still hasn't found a solution but I have. Looks like this is indeed related to permissions and other Mac OS file attributes. I opened one of the files (they're all photos) that wasn't getting backed up in Preview; weirdly it said it was "locked" although "Get Info" indicates it is NOT locked. I ran (in Terminal) ls -al and noticed the succesful directories had an "@ in the final security bit, the failed ones had a +". Apparently this + means "ACL" which affects permissions which can override standard permissions. (Possibly because these are so old.) So I ran "chmod -RN" on the problem directories and this "unlocked" them and they were picked up by Dropbox Backup on the next run.
THe most annoying aspect of this is how it fails silently, even though the Dropbox Backup app *knows* it's failing; Once during a backup I put my mouse over the Dropbox icon in the menu bar and saw, very briefly, a message "Indexing "Samsung...os.dbx-external-drive" "Can't update "198503_05" yet it disappeared, the files were skipped, and Dropbox backup status was normal.

utpmg

Oh, I forgot to say there was one folder i had to change ownership of, it didn't match the others; i think I ran 'chmod g +rx' to put staff in there.

Nancy

Thanks for the additional info, @utpmg! I found your ticket in our system, and I can see our specialists are looking into it. I’ve also left them an internal note with your comments here.

utpmg

thank you!